PrepTest 136, Section 1, Question 19
Music and literature, rivals among the arts, have(444 more words not shown)
The author's primary purpose in(4 more words not shown)
- Aanalyze and commend(15 more words not shown)
- Bcontrast a particular(14 more words not shown)
- Cdescribe a particular(8 more words not shown)
- Ddemonstrate the ways(14 more words not shown)
- Edetail the thematic(15 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
The substantive point is that Morrison's narration works like Ellington's music. For a purpose question, translate that into what the author is doing: explaining how one feature of one novel works.
What we’re looking for
The opening comments about literature and music set up that discussion. They don't turn the entire piece into a survey of Morrison's career or a general comparison of every kind of music and literature.
Working the answers
- A
This expands one aspect of one novel into a variety of contributions across a writer's work. We don't receive that broader assessment of Morrison's achievements.
- B
The author develops an analogy between Morrison and Ellington, emphasizing a shared structure. The purpose isn't to contrast her work with musical work by highlighting their differences.
- CCorrect
The particular writer is Morrison, the work is Jazz, and the aspect is its narrative structure. C is more abstract than our prediction, but each part has a clear match. It doesn't need to repeat the names to describe the author's purpose accurately.
- D
Music and literature provide the background, but the focus is this novel's musical organization. The author doesn't set out to show that the two arts as a whole are actually similar beneath their differences.
- E
Themes concern what a work is about. Here the emphasis is how the story is told. Describing the narrative structure isn't an account of Morrison's thematic concerns and their sources.
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